Demand for tables at plush Auckland waterfront eatery Mikano has never been greater since three precocious Howick schoolgirls forced its temporary closure in October.
Owner John Gosney says November and December were the busiest consecutive months in Mikano's 10-year history - more lucrative than during America's Cup fever.
"We'vehad amazing public support, the publicity certainly had a positive spin-off," he said of Mikano's rebound from an 11-day liquor licence ban after the underage trio went on a champagne-fuelled dining spree.
"December was about 10 per cent up on last year and we've had people from out of town writing that when they visit Auckland over the summer they will come and have a meal."
The fuss began almost a year ago when a 14-year-old Howick girl, Amber Collins-Roe, allegedly offered two 15-year-old school-friends a night out on her father's credit card and ran up a bill for $562.
They washed down their meals with two bottles of the restaurant's priciest bubbly - a $265 Sir Winston Churchill Pol Roger champagne and a $110 Taittinger.
There was no credit card, though, and the restaurant dobbed itself in by calling police after the girls tried to hightail it to the Sky City casino in a waiting limousine.
The Liquor Licensing Authority was clear about its intention to make an example of Mikano, which lost what Mr Gosney estimates was profit of about $45,000. Its message certainly sent a shiver through the restaurant world, although the authority could not have foreseen the outpouring of public sympathy for Mikano, viewed by most talkback callers as a victim of young upstarts.
Mr Gosney says his staff have since been extra vigilant, but have had to refuse alcohol to just one young woman, the only suspect diner unable to produce identification proving she was over 18.
As for the high-rolling Howick trio, at least one is still repaying her father, who footed half the bill for her night out.
Clinton Tau remains convinced that daughter Lisa, now aged 16 and with about $100 to pay back after helping him briefly in his block-laying business, was "probably naive" in being enticed to the restaurant.
Hayley McClure, 16, whose parents paid the other half of the bill, says her mother has banned her from talking to the Herald after she admitted earlier that the escapade was "just something to do".
Missing from the payback equation, as the two older girls and their parents have apparently been unable to find her, is Miss Collins-Roe.
